Last summer, millions of Americans rose up to defeat Senator Mike Lee's plan to sell off 3.5 million acres of public land. Hunters and anglers, climbers, veterans, and tribal nations all joined the fight.

It felt like a victory. It turned out to be a diversion.

While the country celebrated, Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, forcing open more than 200 million acres of America's public lands to industrial development: 60 times what the Lee amendment proposed selling. There were no hearings, and no debate. The law now mandates oil and gas lease sales every quarter, in some of America's wildest places. It slashes royalties, strips the managing agencies of their discretion, and narrows the public's ability to challenge any of it in court. The cleanup costs, which could reach hundreds of billions of dollars, are left to the taxpayers. Because it is now written into law, no future administration can simply reverse it.

In this first episode, host Bill Hedden traces how the fight we were allowed to win concealed the one we lost. Bill has spent half a century defending the public lands in southeastern Utah. He is joined by co-host John Leshy, former Solicitor of the Department of the Interior and our foremost scholar of public-lands law and history, along with voices from across the political spectrum. Together, "The Theft" lays out what was taken, how it happened, and why you weren't supposed to notice until it was too late.

On Common Ground: An American Inheritance tells the story of the lands that belong to all of us, and of the fight to protect them. That fight isn't over yet.

All six episodes arrive in August.

Follow now, and the first one lands in your feed the moment it drops.

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